Pub(l)ic Information

Again, relating to Bottom Live, if you’re in Manchester and missed the shows in the last week, they were advertising that there’s going to be another performance at the Apollo on the 12th December. So there.

ATMs

No, it’s not the pre-christmas season that’ll stuff my blood-pressure, nor is it the Festering Season™ in general. Even the bloody big-issue sellers and shonky market-stalls full of flammable tinsel won’t do it.

What’s guaranteed to do it though is the frinkhuffing bastards who still can’t use cash machines. They’ve been around – and utterly commonplace – for a good fifteen years now, yet still there are braindead parasite scumwads who’ve got stuff-all clue.

Today was a case in point. I wanted to take money out. No problem. There’s only one person in front of me. Typically, the other machine in the bank lobby is norked. So, no worries, she won’t take long.

Oh bugger, she’s trying to pay money in to the machine. Always a bit more long-winded. Christ knows why she’s doing it this way – for the first time in aeons there’s no queue on the counter, so she could be paying it in there. But no, she’s using the ATM. Bonus, she must’ve had the envelope all ready, so she should be organised. *cue the sound of the gods in a fit of hysterical giggles*

At this point I should observe that when paying in money, you have to type the amount into the ATM, on it’s little keypad. This keypad doesn’t have a decimal point. You just type the numbers – it’s about as rocket-science as putting socks on.

She types the amount. £120.00 – then tries to type the pence in, so we end up with £12000.23. Fair enough, it’s an easy mistake if you don’t do it often. So she clears it. And types the same again. £120.00. Clear. Types again. Exactly the same thing. Six times, this happens. Not even any variety – it’s as though she thinks the machine will eventually have pity on her for being a ‘tard, and will just give in and do it for her. The concept of no decimal point, just type in the numbers, simply never occurs to the dim bovine. It’s easier to keep on making the same mistake.

*Deep breath*

Look, just type in 12023. Nothing else.
*types* 1.. 2.. 0..
Now just the 23
*types* 2… 3…
Oh, I see. Thank you. *simpering grin* I’d have been here all day getting it wrong.
Oh, don’t I know it.

Is it unreasonable to believe that some people should just be not allowed out without minders?

Whistle while you work

Over on Naked Blog, Peter has been writing of his surprise that I (and others) use headphones and music in the workplace. It could all get horrendously self-referential here, but frankly, I can’t be bothered to do so.

As regular readers will already know, I’m currently working (and have recently had the contract extended for another four months) for a local authority, knobbing about with their website and so on. The work is – well, I’ll say uninspiring, and leave it at that. Watching continental drift would be more stimulating. At the same time, the other people I work with spend most of their time either not talking at all, or blethering about stuff that a) has no interest for me or b) sends me bananas because it’s stuff they should know but don’t. Section a) includes stuff about what happened in the soaps last night, or what respective offspring are doing in school. Section b) includes stuff wondering how to do something with (for example) a database that is a piece of piss, and considering they’ve been doing the same job for a decade really is something that should come as second nature.

So yes, on occasion I use personal music as an anchor to sanity. I use headphones for it, because I’ve also experienced offices where music was allowed on speakers, and nothing is more headache-inducing than 20 people all listening to different types of music, and all clashing at intrusive volumes. I use music to make a boring job at least verge on the acceptable. A case in point, in the last couple of weeks I’ve been adapting 500 maps to go on a website. It’s dull, repetitive, and about as intellectually stimulating as watching a month of Emmerdale. Music helps the time go past – and stops me deciding that the only other acceptable option is to hang, draw and quarter the social incompetent behind me who insists on humming his way through the day (in both an audio and an olfactory way) which other people in the office might take as being slightly antisocial. Then again, they might thank me for it.

Day Out

Not much has happened today – I’ve been in Chester seeing friends (well, seeing friends, and drinking in a lovely bar by the river) all day, followed by being incredibly sad and watching Little Shop of Horrors on DVD. All in all a pretty good Sunday

Oh, I forgot to say – at the Bottom show last night, I got a bright red T-shirt emblazoned with “Merry Fucking Christmas”. Perfect.

Bottom – Weapons Grade Y-Fronts Tour

Yes, I’m infantile. Yes, I identify with the swearing. And basically, my sense of humour is JUST that infantile. So another fun night ensured – seeing Bottom Live is always an experience, and tonight was no different.

Mindless violence, exceptional sound-effects, lots of swearing, a time-machine toilet (Yes, The Turdis), Y-Fronts, explosions, forgotten lines, a semblance of a plot (for once), it’s all much the same as the previous four stage outings – and still funny with it.

My ribs hurt.

Spawn

Along with everything else that I loathe about the Festering Season™, there’s one I’d managed to erase from memory until this week. It happens every year, and I manage to fume quietly. However, this year the little fuckers seem to be springing up everywhere, and as far as I’m concerned, death’s too good for ’em. The populate every town centre, every shopping centre, everywhere you look you’ll see the little bastards.

Fucking trainees. In every shop, brought in to handle the Festering Rush, the absolute pointy end of the wedge, the focus of consumer ire for another year. Ill-trained, ill-equipped – where’s the fucking wisdom in putting the people with two day’s experience on the tills so that every single customer is pissed off with delays? Fine, get in extra people – let ’em stack shelves, re-stock, and generally do gopher work. Don’t put them in a position where they have to handle trechnology like tills, or complicated concepts like loyalty cards, change, or even simple multi-tasking. Give them the shitey jobs to do – flinging the catalogues of Yuletide junk at prospective punters, or even packing bags so people can get through the tills quicker. Don’t stick them on the “customer services” desk, where all they’ll do is bug another staff member, because they’ve got fuck-all idea where any bastard thing is kept.

Even better, if you actually really want non-fucked-off customers, put the divvy little twonks in charge of keeping the walkways clear, rather than letting pestilential primate pram-pushers congregate in the narrowest parts of the customer flow, rather than allowing the town’s coffin-dodger convention to clog the throughfares of the shops and streets. Move along, move along, get the fuck out the way.

Just don’t put ’em on the tills. Or if you must, if you absolutely bloody bastard have to, then at least give them the training to know how to work the bloody things.

For Fuck’s Sake (again)

Unbelievably, the twunts in the shopping centre (see below for pictures of the crimes against humanity Christmas decorations) in Oldham have now started playing the interminable looped tape of Christmas Carols arranged for Pan-Pipes and Trumpet. I could cry. Or kill people. Or possibly both.